Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

---

Winter is here, in full effect. Jinan is cold and dry, and everyone is wearing thermals these days! We've had our first snowfalls, mainly light flurries that are easily swept away off the sidewalks and roads. It is fun but there is never enough snow for winter sports or sledding. It's mainly brown/gray here in the winter, very drab. The winter weather here is cold, I'd say about 20s-30s. The weather is always in Celsius, so I have to approximate the conversion to Fahrenheit. If the sun is out, it's relatively pleasant. Some days it gets quite bitter, but nothing like the Minnesota winters I grew up in! I don't mind the cold, so I don't often wear thermals, but the other teachers and all of the Chinese people are wearing multiple layers on top and bottom! It's more like Boston temps but dry air like Minnesota. My fellow teachers and I are always dealing with dry hands and face and are constantly applying moisturizer to relieve the dryness.

Our apartment is nice and toasty warm, it's nice to come home to a warm place. My school is not centrally heated, so each room has a heater and they are only turned on for our classes and the moment class is done for the day they are off. Gotta save money at every turn here! The Chinese students and Chinese teachers are used to wearing many layers of clothing both indoors and outdoors in the winter, it's one of the cultural differences between them and us. I appreciate the layering effect to stay warm, it's the best thing you can do if you're cold. BUT the students sometimes get hot in the classrooms due to the combination of layers of clothes and coats and the heat being on. Yet some of them still don't take off their coats/ jackets/ sweaters! In China, they believe that cold air and cold water is bad for your health, so they always prefer to stay hot and drink hot water, summer or winter. They don't have much body hair and don't have much body fat and don't really sweat much in general, unlike us foreigners, so they are much more tolerant of the heat of summer but intolerant of cold winter weather.

I am off to Harbin next week, in the northeastern part of China, near Russia. I should be able to get my fix of snow and ice up there, it's bitterly cold this time of year! They have a big Snow and Ice Festival, so winter is their big tourist season. I hope to ski while I'm up there, as the best skiing in China is near there.

---

Comments

[Kristine]

Snow, really?
I never would have guessed there being snow in china, at least you're not surprised by it.